Savage
by Mordekai
Summary: Everything is different, when it should be the same. It should be fixable, but is it? DeanOC.
1. Savage

_It had seemed like life would be perfect for her. She was 19, in love, and thought the world was at her feet. _

_Unfortunately for her, her world was just extremely fucked up, and the fun hadn't even started yet. _

Maryla Savage woke with a start, and rubbed her eyes, trying to expel the vivid memories from her mind. Which worked really well. Usually she didn't think about it.

Her dreams, on the other hand, were another matter altogether.

Now, fully awake, with bad memories shoved deep somewhere in the vastness of her mind, she yawned, stretched like a yoga master, and rolled out of bed, flicking on her radio as she made her way to the kitchen.

She ate breakfast (a croissant and three bowls of Weetos) sitting on the counter top, rather than at the table she'd bought to go with her new life. Her phone bleeped at her, letting her know that she had voicemail.

"_Mari! Nena, you have to llamame. We need to do something tonight. Shit. Forgot. Tonight is THAT night. Never mind. I'll see you there. Te quiero, chica."_ She smiled at the message, then clicked on to the next one.

"_That was me. By the way. Just in case you didn't get it. Yeah. Neways. Love you. This is Maggie, by the way."_ Maryla laughed at that one. Trust Maggie to think she wouldn't recognize her. Because they hadn't been ridiculously close since she'd...what was the term for it? Come back? Moved here?

To be honest, either one suited her just fine. Although, technically, seeing as she now lived in Texas, and still got stared at for her accent, which had turned from British to something of a South African accent since she'd been here.

She tossed her phone on to her sofa, and went for a shower, knowing her hair looked awful. She'd needed a change, which came in the form of a bottle of hair dye, and the help of Maggie. So her hair had gone from being dark brown, to fire engine red. She'd let Maggie choose the colour. She didn't really give a shit, as long as it made her look different.

She spent the rest of the day milling around, typing essays, watching day time TV, eating her way through almost everything she had at home. She'd always had an appetite like a pregnant woman. Her mother's words, not hers.

*

She showed up to the club in her favourite silk pedalpushers, bought at Maggie's insistence, and her oldest Metallica t-shirt. Which, seeing as she'd been back roughly nine months, wasn't that old at all. She'd bought it off ebay to replace her really old one. She'd bought a lot of things that way.

She was having fun. Ridiculous amounts of fun, but it all helped her forget. But not for long.

As her dancing buddy Brian spun her in a tango-like turn, she caught sight of someone she'd never wanted to see again. And she felt her wrist ache. She missed the step, and nearly fell flat on her face, luckily for her, Brian was quite the dancer. He swiftly made it look like the dip he dropped her in to had been intended. As she looked up, she caught sight of the other two people she'd quite missed but had hoped never to see again. And one word crossed her mind. _Fu-u-u-ck._

And she was hoping like hell they hadn't seen her yet.

*

Sam Winchester hadn't really wanted to come to Texas. Especially not on the whim of the angel he didn't exactly like. Especially not when they had to drag Bobby along with them. And extra-specially not when he knew how Dean felt about cowgirls. And Texan accents.

So when he saw a flash of red being dipped low to the floor, it caught his interest much quicker. Especially when a pair of light green eyes, that he knew were sometimes hazel, sometimes yellow, and quite a lot of the time orange, caught his, with a frantic look of desperation in them. He spoke before he could register the plea in them.

"Maryla?" he stared at the girl in shock. She looked exactly the same as the last time he'd seen her. Red hair excepted.

Bobby Singer looked at Sam like he was nuts, or just plain stupid.

"Sam, Maryla's been dead for five years, remember?" he said, then looked at what Sam was staring at. His face collapsed. Or half collapsed. Half of it collapsed in to a stunned look. The other half raised itself in to a 'What the shit?' look.

It took Dean five minutes to realize that nobody had commented on his sexist comments for a while. When he glanced around, he saw Bobby and Sam staring, still stuck in shock at something across the bar.

He took a look, but whatever they were staring at flew right over his head. Just some redhead with her back to them. _Maybe Sammy's gonna get laid after all._ He thought.

He leaned across to snap Sam out of it, and tell him to make his move, but Sam snapped himself out of it, and almost ran across the bar in his haste to get to her before she left. Or disappeared. Or morphed in to the girl it really was, and was no longer Maryla.

He gently touched her on the shoulder, and felt her stiffen. She'd never liked being touched by people. The girl turned to him, her green eyes gone, and the sorrowful hazel that were her sad eyes replacing them. Eyes as wide as saucers.

And she stayed as her. As Maryla. Because, obviously, she was Maryla. Sam stared at her in shock for a few seconds, then pulled her in to a hug.

"How are you? How did you? When did you?" he couldn't finish any of the questions. Then another thought occurred to him, and he pulled back from her enough to see her face, but not enough for her to make the escape she had been planning, "What the hell are you?"

Across the bar, Dean couldn't quite see the face of the girl Sam was all over, and he felt like he was missing something. Especially when he glanced at Bobby, and saw him still frozen in place.

"I'm not anything, Samuel. I'm just me." Maryla sighed, wishing like hell she knew why her luck was still off stuck up someone else's ass, instead of following her around like it used to before she'd met the Winchesters. He gave her a look. She sighed a more angry sigh, "Fine. Bring on the shot of holy water."

After she'd downed it, and nothing happened, Sam didn't know what to say.

"We should probably get Bobby and jackass, and go talk somewhere." She suggested, and turned to tell her friends she was heading out.

Dean was watching the whole thing with waning interest, still not getting what was going on. Then Sam stepped out of the way so that the redhead could walk beside him. And for once in his life, Dean Winchester felt his heart break.

Bobby snapped out of it as the pair approached, but correctly gaged the situation, as usual, and held back the greetings until the motel room.

It took Dean Winchester exactly three minutes and fifty seconds to realize that he had been left alone in the bar, and the girls who were now standing in the place where he had seen Maryla were teetering between buying him a drink, or calling security on his ass.

*

"You have red hair." Sam, Bobby and Maryla all looked at Dean like he'd just announced he was leaving the hunting life to pursue a career in ballet. As Prima Ballerina.

"You've been stuck on stupid for a long time, haven't you." Maryla said, dropping on to Sam's bed. There was no question in her voice. It was a statement. She knew just how much of an idiot he was.

"You sound South African." was his next brain wave. She looked at him for a split second before returning her gaze to the Winchester brother she wished she'd fallen in love with.

"So." was all she managed to get out before Bobby interrupted.

"Where the hell were you? Everyone thinks you're dead! You didn't contact anyone for five years, and we find you dancing in some bar in Texas! What the hell were you thinking? What the hell were you doing? And who the hell did we bury?" he exploded. Then he sat back, looking stunned with himself.

The hazel eyes locked on his.

"You buried me." she stated simply, "I died. You buried me. End of story." she sighed, "Or it would be if someone up there didn't have a sick sense of humour."

"What happened?" Sam asked, sitting down next to her and reaching for her hand before remembering her dislike of being touched and pulling his hand back. She took it anyway.

"Nine months ago, I wake up in darkness, air running low. So I did like Buffy and dug myself out. Nice choice of burial outfit, by the way. You know what I'm like with dresses." She aimed the last comment at Bobby.

"You said someone upstairs had a sick sense of humour. Were you in heaven?" Bobby asked. The hazel eyes caught his again, this time filled with anguish.

"If only. Five years. You know how long that is in Hell time?" she asked, not expecting an answer, "Six hundred years. Thereabouts. Or at least, in my Hell time."

"Jesus." Dean murmured. All three men stared at her.

"Had nothing to do with it." she said, without looking at him, "So, what brings you here?"

Defence mechanism. She immediately changed subject. She'd never liked being centre of attention, and that was one thing that most definitely had not changed in the five years since she'd last seen them.

"Same old, same old." Sam recovered first, "Dean's been to Hell and back too, so you'll have something to chit chat about. I have demon blood in me." The second titbit of information was announced like he expected a bad reaction.

"Yeah, I heard." was her only response. She stared at her hands for a long time, then looked up at Bobby and Sam, avoiding Dean's gaze like it could give her the Plague if she caught it. Really, she just didn't want to look at _that _face.

"You did?" Sam asked.

"Yeah. Listen. Not that I'm not glad to see you or anything." she began, lying through her teeth, "I'm just really tired. Can we continue this tomorrow? Sam, I'll give you my number."

Sam handed her his phone and she quickly typed it in.

"So I'll see you tomorrow, at around nine." she stood up, and made to leave the motel room. As Sam and Bobby stood and looked around for their stuff, Dean reached out a hand to touch her. To stop her from leaving.

She avoided his hand like she'd foreseen the move and thought she'd be scorched by his touch, closing the door only a little too roughly behind her.

Dean stared at the door as if he could see her through it, as if he was watching her leave him behind.


	2. A Deanisode

_**Disclaimer: I don't own anything Supernatural, except for the characters you haven't heard of and my storylines. **_

Dean stared at the door as if he could see her through it, as if he was watching her leave him behind.

And it felt as if it was yesterday that he'd seen her last. And every single memory that involved her flooded back in as if someone had cracked a dam open, and he was the unsuspecting town below it.

*

_John shook his head in disapproval, a disapproval that was counteracted by the smile he couldn't stop from breaking on to his face. _

_Maryla was spinning around on the pole, acting like she actually was a pole dancer at the club he and Dean had gone to to find the witnesses of the recent murders. _

_Dean was gawking at her like she'd grown wings. Not unexpected, seeing as it was the first time he had met the eighteen year old. And she'd had him eating out of her hand in five minutes, no worries, no fuss, just Dean, pretty much in a ball at her Converse clad feet. If he could've, he probably would have gift wrapped himself too. Right now, he was looking a little rueful that he hadn't been able to._

_John knew a little better. He knew Maryla's mother. She'd been a close friend of Mary's. Hence the name. Asia, which was her name, had been a firecracker, but even she was nothing compared to Maryla, who was more of a chew-it-up-then-spit-the-fire-out kind of girl. Asia had phoned her when Maryla had decided on her trek across America before going to university. The girl was absurdly intelligent. Despite the current outfit. She'd agreed to help him with this interview when they met up because the witness was currently afraid of men. But she'd had to look the part. The heels she was wearing right now could be classified as concealed weapons if she got arrested._

_And she knew how to pole dance. Which was why his eldest son was unable to remove his gaze from her spinning body._

_Dean stared at her as she lowered herself to the stage, twisting around the pole as she went. It was like he'd walk in to his own personal fantasy. Or the girl had been tailor made to fit his taste. She was wearing a Led Zeppelin t-shirt, and a pair of shorts that were denim, and barely there. She had crazily curly dark brown hair, and her eyes glittered orange as she playfully made her dance just for him. The only thing that could have made it better would have been if the music had been something a little more to his taste. _

_She slid off the stage, dropping in to his lap, making him jump. _

"_You should learn to control your drool." she joked, poking his cheek. _

"_I am not drooling." he insisted. She glanced at where John was standing, and then leaned in close._

"_Maybe not. But I'm sure I know a few tricks that could make you." she whispered in a voice so low, he couldn't tell if he'd imagined her saying it. _

_A split second later, and she was out of his lap, stalking towards the witness, all jokes and pole dancing left behind, in the chair where Dean was sitting, staring after her. _

_*_

Dean snapped out of it, but couldn't stop himself from thinking about it. He went out to sit in his baby. She'd spent the rest of the year following them about, and being such a help, they wouldn't have given her up for the world. He'd never felt such a desire for someone.

He shook his head. Desire was actually the wrong word in this case. If anyone else asked him he'd say desire, but if Maryla asked him, even though she knew the answer, desperation would have been the right word.

He'd met her, and immediately wanted her. Not the same way it worked with all the girls he'd been with since. He'd felt a physical ache for her from the moment he'd seen her. For those orange eyes that couldn't be natural. For the perfect size two waist. For the legs. For the hair that he just wanted to wrap around his hands. And most especially for the mind inside that body. It was insane, he knew. He'd only just met her, and he wanted her to like him. Because he wasn't sure that she would.

He, Dean Winchester, was afraid that a girl wouldn't approve of him.

And she'd taken her own damn time letting him know that she did. The teasing and the flirting aside. It took almost a whole year for him to find out if she approved. And man, had it been worth the wait.

He looked at himself in the rear view mirror. God. It still was worth the wait. Maryla Savage owned a part of him that nobody else could touch. Nobody else had ever even come close. It was kind of why he'd become the way he was. The boozing, the women. After she'd died he felt like nothing was left for him. At least, not in the romance side of life. The girl he'd met that day had taken him hostage and robbed the Bank of Dean of himself, of the ideas of a white picket fence life, of the normal future he couldn't help but wish for.

They'd buried her, Dean, Bobby, John and Sam. Dean had heard his father make the phone call to Maryla's mother. Heard what Asia had screamed at him across the phone. Screaming obscenities at Dean. Obscenities he knew he deserved.

It was his fault she'd died.

*

_It took Dean and the blonde in his bed a full five minutes to realize that someone was watching them. Dean turned and saw those hazel eyes for the first time since he'd met her. They looked so different to her normal eyes, he almost didn't recognize her. _

_She threw the pie she'd bought for him at the bed, and turned and walked away. There was a clinking sound, and he saw a silver ring spinning round on the floor where she'd been standing. And he felt like punching himself. _

_He kicked the blonde out, and went to try and find her, but when that failed, he went back to the motel room to wait. _

_John came in, a sad look in his eyes. _

"_What did you do to her?" he asked, taking in the pie on the floor, and the messed up sheets on his son's bed. It was more of a rhetorical question. _

"_Where is she?" Dean asked, standing up from the bed he'd been perched on nervously._

"_She got herself another room. She said she doesn't want to be anywhere near you, and I don't blame her." John held up an arm to stop his son from leaving the room. _

"_I have to talk to her!" they were interrupted by John's phone ringing. _

_He answered, and after a brief conversation, hung up, still holding Dean in the room._

"_We have a lead. We need to go now. I'll go get Maryla. You start the car." John ordered. Dean never disobeyed Daddy. _

_When they got to the warehouse the Yellow Eyed Demon had been rumoured to be around, Maryla got out of the car as wordlessly as she had gotten in to it. They split up in three directions to try and surround the place._

_Ten minutes later, John and Dean ran in to each other, and a further ten minutes later they'd found her. _

_She was laying on the floor, so relaxed, you'd have thought that she'd been knocked out. Dean certainly did._

_He knelt down next to her, and tried to wake her up. When he rolled her over he saw the blood. That's when he noticed she wasn't breathing._

"_Dean? She OK?" his father asked, as he looked up at him for a second. Then Dean freaked. He started trying CPR, telling his dad to call 911. _

_He'd cracked three of her ribs trying to revive her, the doctors later told him. He must have really loved her. "We'll get whoever did this to her." the police assured him._

_He hadn't been able to do anything for the next few days. Sam and Bobby had been called. Bobby had bought the dress. Sam tried to get Dean to talk. Nothing worked. _

_The only thing he did do was let Sam take him to a hospital to get his hand put in a cast after he'd found Dean punching the wall repeatedly. _

_The day of the funeral, he'd been ready to start punching with his left hand. He was sat in the motel room by himself when he noticed the silver ring, discarded on the floor, it was laying against the wall now. He went over and picked it up, spinning it in his fingers. Something written on the inside caught his eye. _

_He could barely read the tiny letters. **'Life is ours, we live it our way'.** He stared at the tiny words, wondering what she'd meant by them. The funeral passed as a blur. The only thing he did remember was that 'Nothing Else Matters' was playing on the radio as he drove from the church._

*

He spun the ring on his right ring finger, still not remembering a conscious decision to wear it on that hand. All Dean knew now was that somehow, she was back. And that somehow he was going to make everything right between them.


	3. To Live Is To Die

_**Disclaimer: I own only the characters you haven't heard of. Nothing truly 'Supernatural'. Unfortunately.**_

_*****_

Maryla woke the day after, hoping it had all been a very surreal dream. But she knew better. She wandered around her house, not really knowing what to do with herself. She decided on trying on clothes. Something the pre-Death Maryla would have refused to do, so something to make herself feel more normal.

They arrived earlier than she'd expected. She was bouncing around listening to 'Cherry Pie' when she heard her doorbell go, and she went to answer it.

"Um. Whoa." Sam said, staring at her in shock. She glanced down, and realized she was wearing almost the same outfit she'd worn the first time she'd helped John and Dean on a hunt. The cut up Led Zeppelin top, and the super short denim hotpants. The only difference was she was barefoot this time. As opposed to shoes with dangerously spiky heels.

Dean felt his breath catch in his throat. She pulled her hair back off her face, and stepped back to let them in to the house.

"Nice place." Bobby complimented as she led them to the kitchen. Maryla hopped up on the counter before jumping off with a little shriek. She put a tea towel down on it before repeating her earlier move.

The boys sat down at the table. Which was a huge old oak table that had cost almost as much as the house. Dean leaned on it, but felt his elbow dip in to something in a painful way. He glanced down to see an elaborate 'D' carved in to the table top.

"Still carving crap in to fancy tables, huh?" Bobby asked, noticing some carvings around his side of the table.

"I guess. Not so much as before." Maryla smiled slightly, and rubbed at her left wrist, which was wrapped in a drummer's wrist band, "You still got it?"

"What the hell else would I do with it? That table is one of the nicest things I own." Bobby replied. His table had taken her two years to finish. It had every protective symbol under the sun, from ancient times, and before ancient times, carved on to it.

"So. Um. Do you wanna know how Dean got out of Hell?" Sam asked. She looked at him, a look full of meaning that he couldn't understand.

"I'm guessing it was the angels what did it." All three of them stared at her. And not because her accent had wavered back on to the border of being British. She shrugged, ""What? He's the only one that's allowed to get out of Hell because of an angel?"

"The angels pulled you out?" Dean asked, wondering if it would get her to finally look at him.

"Yeah. See?" she held out her uncovered right wrist for their general inspection. There were fingerprints across her wrist, as if someone with bigger hands than her had taken her by the hand. She still didn't look at Dean.

There was an awkward silence.

"So, what are you in town for?" the men all looked at each other before turning back to the inquisitive green eyes of the red haired girl who was holding a whole lot of surprises up her sleeves.

"Vampires." Dean said, running his fingers along the 'D' in the table and hoping she couldn't tell if he was lying any more. She took the chance to observe him for a few moments, and was back to looking at Sam and Bobby before Dean even had a chance to feel her gaze on him.

"Ah. Now, would that be the old coven, or the new lot?" she asked, sliding off the counter and leaning over the sofa to grab her laptop.

"New lot." Sam replied, without thinking. He did a double take, "Wait. There are vampires?" she shrugged a shrug that was almost invisible because of the hair hanging around her shoulders.

"I may have been dead for five years, but it's not like I was at a pool party with Cliff Burton. I was trying to figure out a way out, and I was making sure I didn't forget anything that I'd learned." she crossed herself when she mentioned Cliff Burton, "May he rest in peace."

Dean nodded his agreement. Sam shot a bemused look at the two of them.

"Any hoo. The old ones are not interested in people-like snacks. They're strictly...vegetarian... I dunno what you'd call it. The new ones, they're the newest problem. People have been disappearing like it was the Bermuda Triangle since they got to town." she continued, singing along to 'I Disappear' in her head. She watched her laptop load up.

"OK. So, Sammy, what're we doing?" Dean asked, waiting for the research geek to come out of his brother.

"We need to figure out where their nest is. Get some Dead Man's Blood, and go get 'em?" The last part was a question.

"Um. Boys." Bobby said, and motioned in Maryla's direction. The brothers looked at her to see her holding out her laptop to Sam, all the details needed already catalogued.

"Here." she handed him the laptop, and let herself fall backwards on to her sofa, where she lay for the ten minutes it took Sam to read all her research.

"Dad was right." Sam said when he was done, leaning over her, "You really are good at this."

"Correction. Was. I'm not doing this any more. Yeah, yeah, I know, all the people I could save, whatever. I've had enough. I've been to Hell, I got pulled out and dropped on the edge of the earth, and left to deal. And I've had enough. I don't want to do this crap any more. In three days it should be my 24th birthday. Instead, I have to pretend like I'm turning 20. And if I'm living this life, I at least want to have a life." she sighed, and tied her hair back.

"What, you want us to just leave you here? You need to go see your family, let people know you're here." Bobby began. She whipped round to face him.

"Don't you dare tell my mother I'm alive. Leave her alone. She doesn't need to get me back. She's OK how she is. I'm happy here. I've got my friends, my life, university. All the things I was supposed to get after that year." her green eyes had turned orange as she spoke.

"Mari." Dean began. She acted like he hadn't spoken.

"Now, go, get the vampires, and then get gone." she dropped back on to her sofa and shut her eyes.

They left reluctantly, and sorted the problem.


	4. A Kind of Caring

_**Disclaimer: I do not own anything Supernatural, all I own are my stories and the characters you haven't heard of.**_

_**Hey people, thanks for the favouriting, some RnR would be lovely too, let me know how I'm doing? Xx**_

_**Oh, and I know I didn't mention it before, but the correct pronunciation of 'Maryla' is with the 'Mari' part of 'Maria' with 'lah' on the end. It's a real name. It's Polish. **_

_*****_

Maryla knocked on the motel door, room 220, shifting nervously from foot to foot. She really didn't want to have to do this, but she really had no choice. It was why she'd called them. She hadn't seen them since the night with the vampires, and that had been just over a month ago. Well, she'd called Sam. She was really hoping it would be him to open the door. But mostly she was hoping whoever opened the door would do it quickly.

Dean opened the door, obviously expecting someone else, seeing as the bite of donut that he was eating fell out of his mouth on to the floor, and he gaped at her, mouth wide open. She looked awful. Her skin was all pale, and she had huge purple circles around her eyes. She looked like she was wasting away.

"Uh. Hey, Maryla." he got louder when he said her name, alerting Sam to the fact that it wasn't the pizza guy, and then, because he didn't know what else to say, he asked, "How are you?" Sam got up to join him.

In reply, and mostly because she couldn't hold it in any more, Maryla threw up on his boots.

"Whoa!" both Sam and Dean jumped back.

"I... I'm really sorry." she said, straightening up, and staring at the mess she'd made. Dean grabbed some towels, and put them over the trail of sick, and held out his hand to help her across the threshold.

For the first time since the three had met once again a month ago, and for the first time in almost six years, Dean and Maryla touched. And, of course, there were still sparks.

Hell, it was more like an electric shock from dropping a hair dryer in a bathtub full of water. As soon as she was on solid ground again, they let go of each other like... well, so quickly that Maryla fell back on to Sam's bed, and Dean fell through the open door to the bathroom.

"Are you all right?" Sam asked, coming over to the red head. He crouched down beside her as she started to shake her head, still laying down.

"Whoa. Bad plan." she murmured, and stopped moving. Dean, deciding he wouldn't be able to take the smell of sick, decided to tackle the mess, "I...I dunno what's going on. I can't eat, I can't sleep, it's crazy."

"So, not all right, then." Sam said. She smiled a little, and then noticed what Dean was doing, and jumped up.

"No, Dean, I'll do it. I mean, I made the mess, you shouldn't have to clean it." she said, swaying slightly, her curly hair sticking out at crazy angles. Dean just looked at her, _'She even looks pretty when she's ill.'_ he thought, despite his earlier thoughts.

"What are you gonna do? Faint in it face first?" was what he said out loud. Sam sat her back down again, before she got angry. She didn't though. She just surrendered, and moved up to the head board.

"You got salmonella, or something?" Sam asked. She shook her head.

"Been to three specialists, none of them know what the heck is going on." she sighed.

"Think it's some kind of hoodoo?" Dean asked, heading in to the bathroom to wash his hands. She shrugged.

"Would I be here if I didn't?" Sam looked at her.

"That hurts my feelings." he informed her, putting on his puppy dog face. She giggled at him, then stopped short. She jumped to her feet and ran for the bathroom Dean was just leaving. He dodged out of her way this time.

She came back out ten minutes later to see Dean laid back on his bed, listening to Sam's iPOD, as Sam was looking at something on his computer.

"Hey." Sam greeted, "Come here." she obliged and he proceeded to go through the list of medical things that could be wrong with her, checking out her symptoms. Nothing fit perfectly.

"So, now what?" Dean asked, from his observation point.

"Now, we sleep, wait until tomorrow, and if she's no better, try another doctor." Sam said.

"You want the bed?" Dean offered, looking at Maryla, who looked like she was about to fall asleep standing up.

*

She was awake. Again. It was 3am, and she'd been waking every five to ten minutes since they'd decided to go to sleep. She was in Dean's bed, in a pair of Sam's boxers and one of his t-shirts, while he was asleep on the floor, and Sam was on the other bed, snoring like a chainsaw. She should have been asleep too, but she couldn't. Her stomach was aching so much, especially when she tried to lay on her front or side, which was a bitch, because she usually slept on her front or her side. There was something else nagging her subconscious, wanting her to stay awake.

She rolled to lay on her back, to see if that would help. This time, however, it didn't.

"Oh, bollocks." she jumped up and ran for the bathroom, closing the door behind her.

Dean rolled over and looked at the door, wishing he knew what to do to help her, and that he hadn't pretended he was still sleeping. He'd been 'watching' her. Which, in Dean terms, meant that he was pretending he was asleep, while listening to see if she was OK, which would have been easier had Sam not been snoring quite so loudly.

A few minutes later, the sounds of her being sick had died down, and the sound of the flushing toilet had gone and all was quiet for a moment. Then there was a loud thud and a crashing sound. And then a gushing sound.

"Dude. Wake up!" Dean jumped up, shaking Sam awake.

"Wha?" Sam yawned. Then he noticed that his brother was frantically banging on the door to the bathroom, shouting Maryla's name. And that Dean was standing in a puddle, "Aw, dude, you need to control your bladder."

The next thing he knew, Dean had broken down the door to the bathroom, and was slipping around on the tiles.

"Sammy! Call 911!" Dean cried, sliding across the floor on his knees to Maryla's side. Sam rushed to see what was happening, dialling as he moved. He didn't like what he saw.

Maryla was laying, unconscious, in a puddle of water. Water that was turning from a slight pinkish colour, to a deeper red around her head. Dean lifted her gently, ignoring the pool of toilet water around them, holding her in his arms so that she didn't drink any of the water, and trying to wake her up.

*

Mary 'LaCross' woke up 36 hours later in a hospital bed, attached to a breathing machine, and heart monitor, and an IV. And with Dean Winchester laying next to her, his arm across her midriff. He jumped awake as soon as she woke.

"Hey." he said, his voice in that 'I-just-woke-up' gravelly man stage, "You're awake."

"Uh. Yeah." she replied, not really sure what to say to that. Then she smirked a little, "Since when have you been Captain Obvious?"

He smiled, just glad she was awake.

"What happened?" she asked, looking a little lost. He watched her for a minute.

"You decided you really hate toilets, and that the best way to display your loathing was to take one out. Using your head." he said, matter-of-factly.

"I nutted a toilet?" she asked. He raised an eyebrow, "To nut. In British terms, means to head butt someone or something."

"Yeah. As you collapsed. You didn't mention that you hadn't been able to eat or drink anything for almost a week." A disapproving look flashed across his face, "Anyway. So, yeah. All I heard was a thud, which was you collapsing, a cracking sound, which was your head cracking the toilet bowl in half, and a gushing sound, which was the toilet water breaking free."

"Oh." was all she could say. She stretched her fingers. Which was quite hard to do. With her right hand, anyway. She had a cast on it, and it really hurt to move, "Owa." She grabbed it with her left hand.

"Oh, yeah, and you used your hand as a crash mat and broke it in five places. And you have six stitches in your head." he added, taking her left hand away from her right, "And the doctors were amazed that you hadn't thrown up your internal organs."

"Stitches? I thought they used that head glue on head wounds now?" she replied. Sam came in bearing coffee.

"Hey. You woke up. The doctors weren't sure you were gonna make it. Any brain damage?" he asked, handing a coffee to Dean, who slid off of the bed and in to the arm chair by the window.

"Not that I can tell. But then, my brain was probably damaged at birth, according to you and what you used to say about my taste in music." she replied, sitting up a little.

"We're gonna take you to Bobby's. If we keep you there, in a padded room, you might not damage yourself any more." Sam said, smiling at her comment.

"Because it was intentional the first time." she retorted, her voice oozing sarcasm. Sam laughed.

*

"Holy crap in Heaven! What the hell happened to you?" Bobby cried, watching her get out of the car. She looked like a twig with a cast on. And red wool wrapped around the top. Dressed in someone else's, someone who was a million sizes bigger, clothing.

"Always a pleasure, Bobby." She leaned against the Impala for support, hoping Dean wouldn't tell her off for it.

Dean came round to her side of the car, took one look at her, and swept her in to his arms. And almost dropped her. He'd overestimated how much she weighed.

"Geez, Mari, I knew you'd lost weight, but this is ridiculous." he murmured to her. She leaned her head against his chest, enjoying the warmth, and the steady rhythm of his heartbeat.

"We don't know, to answer your question. We have no idea what is going on." Sam answered Bobby's question.

"Well, let's get her to bed." Bobby suggested. Maryla stiffened in Dean's arms. There was something about sleeping that she couldn't quite remember.

"Hey." Dean said gently, carrying her up the stairs, "Want me to stay with you?" he looked at her with concern, and nearly fell flat on his face, because he missed a step.

She burst out laughing, and didn't stop until he set her on the bed.

"You gonna be OK up here?" Bobby asked, leaving as she nodded, "Holler if you want anything." Sam followed after him.

Dean hesitated at the side of the bed.

"You want me to stay?" he repeated his earlier question.

"No." she replied, an 'I can take care of myself' attitude in her voice. He turned to go, "Yes." she said it so quietly, he turned to make sure she'd actually said it.

"What?" he asked.

"Stay?" she looked at him, eyes filling up with tears, "Please?" He dropped on to the bed beside her.

"Hey, it's OK." he said, taking her in his arms, "It's OK."

"It's not OK. They can't figure out what's wrong with me. I'm gonna die again. Aren't I? And this time it's not gonna be my choice. Oh God. I don't want to die again. If I die again, does he get claim to me again? I don't want to die. Dean." she rambled, tears coming full flow. He didn't have a clue what she was talking about, but he pulled her in to his arms anyway.

"Whoa. Shh." He held her as close as he possibly could, without her becoming a part of him, gently rubbing her back. When she still didn't calm down, he turned to what had always been his last resort with her.

"_So close, no matter how far, couldn't be much more from the heart, forever trusting who we are, and nothing else matters. _

_I never opened myself this way, life is ours, we live it our way, all these words I don't just say, and nothing else matters. _

_Trust I seek and I find in you, every day for us something new, open mind for a different view, and nothing else matters. _

_Never cared for what they do, never cared for what they know, but I know."_

By the time he got round to singing the second verse, she was asleep in his arms. He sighed gently, and shifted his position. Her hand shot out, taking hold of the front of his shirt, keeping him with her.

"I'm not going anywhere." he told her, thinking she'd woken up. When she didn't respond, he glanced down at her. She was still asleep, a tiny smile on her lips. He kissed her forehead, and settled down on the pillow.

*

Dean had woken, and found he really needed to pee. Whispering assurances to Maryla's sleeping form that he'd be back in a minute, he still had trouble breaking her hold on his shirt.

On his way back, he ran in to Sam, who looked surprised to see him.

"Dude, I thought you were with Mari?" Sam said, looking confused.

"I needed to pee. Not a crime." Dean responded.

"No, but dude, I swear, you were just in her room." Sam said. The brothers looked at each other long enough to hear Maryla talking sleepily to someone.

"_De, no. Not tonight. I'm too tired."_ Both brothers shot in to the room.

"Whoa!" Dean shouted, coming face to face with his naked self, "What the hell?" The thing, whatever it was, snarled at the brothers, and took a swipe at them, before disappearing.

"What the hell was that?" Dean asked, then he glanced down, and whipped the covers from where they'd fallen on the floor, and covered the now naked Maryla with them. He glanced at Sam, who was blushing slightly.

Bobby burst in, shotgun aimed.

"What was all the yelling for?" he demanded. His gaze settling on the elder Winchester, who was kneeling trying to wake Maryla.

"Something took on Dean's form, and was trying to seduce her." Sam explained.

"Rape her more like. She's almost comatose." Dean interjected angrily, his hand running gently along her face. She murmured something unintelligible, and took his hand with her broken one. He traded her hands, holding her unbroken hand tightly.

"So, something took on Dean's, which is a man's form," Dean shot Bobby a look that asked if he was trying to be Captain Obvious now, which Bobby ignored, "And tried to have sex with our girl?"

"Yeah. I guess." Sam said.

"Has she had any trouble sleeping?" Bobby asked.

"Yeah, she doesn't want to sleep. She's not sure why, but she said she just doesn't want to." Dean replied.

"I think I know what we've got." Bobby said, "And someone needs to be with her at all times now."

"What have we got?" Dean asked. Bobby glanced at Sam, who had figured it out almost as soon as he had.

"Incubus." they said in unison.

*

_**The song, in case you didn't know, is Nothing Else Matters by Metallica. Which I do not own.**_

_**Thanks. x**_


	5. Something of the Truth

_**Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters you are familiar with (unless you've been following this story, in which case, I own one of them.)**_

_**Sorry it's taken so long, had a lot of craziness with work/uni/life/ideas rolling around in my almost empty head =D**_

_**Hope you enjoy.**_

_*****_

"Like the band?" The three men all stared at Maryla in shock. She'd never said anything so silly in her life, and realized it as soon as the words were out of her mouth, "Sorry. That was idiotic. I'm just really tired."

Dean pulled her in to his arms again, and refused to let go.

"Isn't Lilith associated with incubi, and succubi?" Maryla said, before Dean could start talking. Again the men stared at her, "What? That was not a stupid comment! There are these two demons in ancient texts called Lilu and Lilitu, Lilu was the father or something and was an incubus, Lilitu was a succubus." she blurted out.

"OK. That's reassuring." Dean said snarkily. Maryla elbowed him weakly.

"Why would she be coming after you? She doesn't even know who you are?" Bobby said.

"That's true. But maybe she's heard about the new girl hanging around with the Winchesters, and isn't liking what she's heard. How do you know all this stuff, anyway, I thought you said you weren't researching any more?" Sam aimed the last part at Maryla, who sighed.

"I'm not. Cultural anthropology, Studies in the Supernatural. Figured it was an easy A." She yawned, and leaned in to Dean a bit more.

"Oh. Right." Sam said, glancing at Bobby as Maryla fell asleep in Dean's arms, something that hadn't happened in a long time, with the exception of earlier that night. Something weird was definitely going on between his older brother and his ex-girlfriend.

*

The plan, that had taken Bobby and Sam three days to convince Dean to go through with, and even then he'd only agreed because Maryla had woken up and told him that he had two choices, one: he could go through with the plan and save her, or two: he could watch her die and bury her again, only this time she was pretty certain she wouldn't be coming back.

And so Dean agreed, and had had his trademark 'I'm worried about someone I care about' scowl on his face ever since.

"Doesn't your face hurt?" he jumped a little, and looked down to see Maryla looking up at him from the bed, having just woken up.

"What?" he asked, hearing Sam come in, but ignoring it.

"From all the scowling? You never used to scowl this much. Doesn't it make your face hurt?" She continued. Sam guffawed, until Dean shot him a look.

"It's almost time." The younger Winchester reverted to what Maryla had always called his 'Serious Sam' voice.

"We'll be right outside." Dean assured Maryla, who rolled her eyes tiredly.

"Yeah. OK. Fine. Can we get this over with, so I can get well and go home?" She asked, flopping back on to her pillow and mumbling something no one could quite make out.

*

Dean thought that he was the first one who heard it. But really it was Maryla who heard it first. It was the noise she had been dreading going to sleep for for the past month at least. A little creeping sound that shouldn't mean anything to anyone. Unless you were a hunter. She should have figured it out herself, the signs were so obvious if she'd had the strength to she'd have whacked her head against a wall. The loss of strength, the crazy sex dreams about _him_, the subconscious desire to not go to sleep. If she hadn't been pretending to be asleep, she would have given an exasperated sigh.

Instead, she felt a hand coming on to her shoulder, turning her over, hearing the same rasping that had been plaguing her for weeks. And she wondered if it would be easier to just give up, let the thing kill her, and go back to the pool party with Cliff Burton. Which despite what she'd said earlier, was actually pretty much what she had been doing the last couple of months.

As soon as she thought it, she dismissed it, albeit ruefully. Sodding Castiel and his sodding first words to her. If it hadn't been for those, she would've killed herself as soon as she dug herself out of her grave. And sodding Archangels with their stupid plans and convincing tones that could make anyone do any damn thing they wanted.

God, life was supposed to be so easy. She was supposed to waltz in and take the world by storm, not die at nineteen, only to be brought back five years later, because... well, because some one had it in mind that she could be useful. Or they just had a really sick sense of humour.

*

Sam was too absorbed in trying to read the expression on his older brother's face to notice anything out of the ordinary. He'd never seen Dean this emotional. Not even at Maryla's funeral, even then he'd shown no emotion, rather than what everyone knew he was going through. Now he looked a cross between terrified, and something Sam couldn't quite analyze.

Dean, on the other hand, was listening so intently, he could have sworn he could hear Maryla's heartbeat. Something he'd never thought he'd ever hear again. Partially because she'd died, and partially because they'd dug her back up after the funeral and given her a proper hunters funeral. The sound of the match lighting up had haunted him for weeks.

Bobby was the first to react. He shifted slightly, as he heard the crazy girl's breathing change. Silently, he signalled to the two brothers to be ready, then burst in to the room, exorcism on the tip of his tongue. To his surprise, Dean beat him to it.

It was over in seconds. The thing literally just poofed. Well, it was a bit more dramatic, it turned it's shrieking gaze on the three, fighting for a way to avoid the exorcism, and _then _it poofed.

Bobby and Sam were still staring at Dean in surprise a few moments later. The oldest Winchester shrugged it off, and turned to the red haired girl who had helped him learn it, and without whom he'd never been able to get it quite right.

And he felt his heart stop. And not in a good way. From the way she looked, she wasn't even breathing.

"What? Did we take too long? Bobby, what's going on?" he jumped across the bed, taking Maryla in his arms, not knowing what to do.

"I... I dunno, Dean." Bobby said, flipping through the pages of the book he was holding, trying to find the answer so that they wouldn't lose her again.

Then Dean heard it. She was mumbling something.

"What's she saying?" Sam asked, coming round to Bobby's side.

"I know. I know, it wasn't supposed to go like this. I just... You have to leave them alone." she murmured, in a voice so quiet, only Dean could really hear her.

"Mari." he began, but stopped as she said something that surprised him.

"Azazel." she murmured, "I don't care. You're going to have to go through me to get to the Winchesters. So you can either take the deal, or I send you back where you belong. Just give them a year of peace."

Dean stared at her in shock. That was what she'd meant about dying by her own choice.

"Mari?" Bobby said, a lot louder than Dean had said it. Her eyes flew open, and locked on to Dean's. The pair stared at each other for a few moments, then returned their attention to the world around them.


	6. The Interlude Within the Dream

_**Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters you are familiar with (unless you've been following this story, in which case, I own one of them.)**_

_**Sorry it's taken so long, had a lot of craziness with work/uni/life/ideas rolling around in my almost empty head =D So I figured I'd give you two new chapters!**_

_**Hope you enjoy.**_

Dean knew he was dreaming. And he also knew he shouldn't have been dreaming, because he was supposed to be awake, and trying to stop Maryla from leaving in the 1968 Dodge Superbee Bobby had just returned to her ownership.

He knew he was dreaming, because he was five years younger, staring at a brunette Maryla, who was perched on the hood of the Impala dressed in only his shirt, which looked more like a tent on her and her stature of five foot one, watching as she stared off in to the distance, the morning fog around the trees, and the sun that hadn't even risen yet.

He even knew what he was dreaming about. He'd dreamt about it often enough, but she'd always been just out of his reach in all the other dreams. She'd always been just that step too far away. He'd dreamt about her every night after he'd been with any other woman, and he'd dreamt about her during those rare moments of respite in Hell.

He was dreaming about the morning after their first real night together. Which, of course, had been in the Impala. And my Lord, had it been some kind of a night. He'd always remembered it as one big blur that still seemed to pass by in absolute detail. Although how they'd ended up sleeping in the grass beside where the Impala was parked, he still wasn't quite sure.

He sat up carefully, trying not disturb her, and as he stood, he realized she was not dressed in only his shirt. She had his socks and boots on too. He leaned across the hood of the car, and kissed the hand that she was leaning back on. She jumped slightly, and opened her eyes to observe him. They were the same colour as the leaves on the trees around them, a rich, deep, and peaceful kind of green.

"You're up." he said, pulling her round to him. She smiled, and shook her head slightly.

"So are you." she replied, running her hand through his hair. He looked at her until he couldn't take it any more, and pulled her in to him, pulling her body up against his, taking her mouth in to a hard kiss that claimed ownership of the receiver, a kiss he knew from memory he'd use on her many a time when jealous of the guys she was interviewing. She responded in kind, and he found himself trying to rip the shirt off of her before he even knew what he was doing. He pulled back a little to steady himself, and settled for just looking at her again.

She shot him a quizzical look, and tipped her head to one side, a coy smile playing on her lips. He couldn't help but smile. And then he found himself kissing her again.

The dream changed a little. It shifted to an event a few weeks after that first night.

Some guy had been harassing her at the bar all night. True, she wasn't even supposed to be in the bar, but her accent made her sound a lot older than what she was. And she wasn't even dressed for the guy's kind of attention anyway. She was in a pair of slightly too big jeans, a racer back red top, and a pair of DC skate shoes that Dean loved to tell her made her look like a clown. The only thing she'd done all night that would have captured anyone's attention was dance like a fool to Stevie Knicks' Edge of Seventeen. Questionable, he knew, but she loved it.

When they left the bar to go back to the motel, he could tell something was up, so, for once, he was glad his dad had gone off on his own hunt.

"You OK?" he asked, closing the door behind them as she flopped on to one of the beds in their motel room.

"Why do guys think that's OK?" she asked, sitting up angrily. He knew the anger wasn't aimed at him, and looked at her sympathetically, and didn't say a word, "That kind of behaviour! Ugh!" she threw her hands up in the air.

"I don't really know." he said, leaning back against the door to watch her.

"You do it too, you know. But you've never done it to me. And you're not as creepy." she commented.

"I should hope not." he smiled. He loved watching her when she got dramatic about something. She was all arms and elbows, and hair flying around, and facial expressions. Her eyes narrowed, and she glared at him, trying to tell if he was making fun of her, or if he was just being his usual self.

With an exasperated sigh, she flung herself back to laying down on the bed. He went over to his bag and pulled something out.

"I have something for you." he said, approaching her.

"Is it sleeping pills I can overdose on?" she asked, eyes shut, annoyance the only tone in her voice.

"No." he said, and balanced it on her chest. She lifted her head and stared in shock at the ring box sitting on her.

"Dean..." she began, starting to freak out. He knew what her reaction was going to be, and immediately tried to calm her.

"Mari. Calm down. You know what we're both like. It's not like that. It's just something from me to you, because I wanted to get you something. Something that means it's you and me against the world." he said. She turned her apprehensive gaze from the ring box to him.

"I... What? Did you just propose in some weird as hell Dean way?" she asked. He went to say no, and then thought about it.

"I guess I did, yeah." he said, completely calm, not feeling like him at all, "What's it gonna be?"

*

Dean jumped awake to the sound of roaring laughter, and followed it outside.

When he got outside, he saw what the loud laughter had been about, as he watched the still stick thin beauty sprawl across the hood of her baby, arms and legs outstretched as she tried to hug her car. He couldn't help but laugh too.

She climbed down off her car and took a flying leap at Bobby, giving Sam the chance to catch a glimpse of something across her abdomen.

"What's that?" he asked, motioning to her lower half. She flushed a little red.

"Just something." she replied.

"You wouldn't say that if it wasn't something you're embarrassed about!" Sam declared, grabbing her and trying to see. In the end he ended up displaying the top half of it to the world, leaving Dean without a doubt what it was, and Bobby staring from Maryla to Dean, "Is that-" Sam began.

"It's something I got to remind me of something I figured would last as long as the damn thing itself." Maryla said, averting her gaze from Dean's eyes. He knew exactly what it was because he remembered the day she'd gotten it. The tattoo of his name across her abdomen. John had nearly killed her for that one, but had actually taken it out on Dean himself. Well, a little lower than her abdomen. If she hadn't lost so much weight, they wouldn't have been able to see it at all, it was that low. She pulled her joggers up and re-tied the string at her waist.

He wanted to touch her, to reassure her of... something, but whatever relaxed atmosphere had been between them during her run in with the incubus was now gone, replaced with the tension that had been there since he had first clapped eyes on her.

He ended up touching her anyway. She swayed unsteadily on her feet, and went to hit the floor again, but he caught her just in time.

"Looks like you're not leaving just yet." Bobby commented.


End file.
